Children are getting emaciated due to poor feeding|Courtesy-BBC

Hundreds of thousands of people are slowly starving in Kenyan refugee camps after US funding cuts reduced food rations to their lowest ever levels, the BBC cited a United Nations official as saying.

Malnourished children, filling a 30-bed ward at Kakuma’s Amusait Hospital, are a clear indication that the impact of food ration cuts is beginning to hit the refugees hard.

A home to an estimated 300,000 refugees, Kakuma has been a haven to people who fled harsh conditions, including violence and persecution in countries across Africa and the Middle East, including South Sudan.

The US had provided around 70% of the funding for the WFP’s operations in Kenya.

Following the funding cuts, WFP was compelled to slash the refugees’ rations to 28% of the minimum recommended amount a person should eat to stay healthy.

“If we have a protracted situation where this is what we can manage, then basically we have a slowly starving population,” says Felix Okech, the WFP’s head of refugee operations in Kenya.

Until this year, the UN was giving around $4m in cash directly to refugees in Kenya’s camps each month, intended to allow families to buy basic supplies.

WFP officials have, over the past months, warned that the cutbacks could have devastating consequences for already vulnerable communities.

Previously, explaining the severity of the situation, WFP’s Deputy Country Director in Kenya, Baimankay Sankoh, said the agency had been forced into a painful position.